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quilty beginnings

The whole time I was working on my book, I had this quilt in the back of my head. It's based on this one from Lotta's Handmade Living - just a patchwork of strips of two different widths. All of this fabric is from the stash and much of it organic or old - and that makes me quite chipper. That said, I will need to buy new batting when the time comes, and probably something for the back, too. There are some absolute favorite prints in there - a couple of Cloudbirds from Skinny laMinx, some Cloth from their newish quilting range (swoon), some Summersville and some Ink & Spindle (who, co-incidentally, I met for the first time at Bowerbird Bazaar last weekend. Hello Lara and Teegan, it was lovely to meet you!)

So often with quilts I overthink the whole thing. I get myself in a tangle over pattern/prints/colours and the quilt never gets made. This one is coming together so fast, it makes me think that the trick (for me) is to grab my best bits of fabric, stop thinking, and get cracking. Eight strips down, and probably around 16 to go. I'm excited to see how it turns out!

unfinished and finished

I finally sewed my Umbrella Prints trimmings, but with family goings-on and finalising book stuff, I was - of course - too late to make the competition end-date. The finalists can be viewed and voted on at Amy's blog here. I ended up making this little patchworked quilt top, but ran out of time to quilt and assemble it into a cushion. The wonky crosses were loosely inspired by this Lotta Jansdotter pattern. Ah, love a bit of Lotta.

Oh, and a whopping belated thankyou (THANKYOU!) so much for all the lovely feedback about my foray into book-writing. I turned in the manuscript about 6 weeks ago, and all the toys were packed into three boxes and sent to Melbourne last week. That was a nerve-wracking day (they arrived safely, phew). So, although there will be other bits and bobs to attend to, my part is - for now - done. Finished! Unbelievable. The plan still is, I think, for publication by the end of this year, but I shall keep you posted.

Now I'm looking forward to catching up on everything else that has been neglected for the past 7 months. Reaquainting myself with my lovely husband and children. Watching some guilt-free tv in the evenings (Masterchef, I'm looking at you). Cracking on with a new quilt or two. Blogging more than once in a blue moon. And finally activating that Pinterest invitation that has been waiting patiently in my in-box. Oh, yes indeed.

 

trimmings

Did you know that Umbrella Prints are holding another of their Trimmings competitions? Make something from one of their trimmings packs (available from their big cartel shop) and up for grabs are loads of goodies from their range. Oh, how I love their work. Just about every room in our house where soft furnishings are appropriate has a cushion using their fabric.

I'm going to have a crack, and couldn't go past this collection of striking warm trimmings. I felt like a kid playing with lollies taking them out of the pack and moving them around the desk to take this photo. More information about the competition can be found here and here.

PS: Thanks so much for your lovely comments on my last post. It's good to be back.

nice fabric

There's an original title for a craft blog post - ha! Still sewing a lot for the market here. I have been trying to cut into some of my favorite fabric instead of leaving it to gather dust on the shelf. So, little black cat's skirt is some of Lu Summer's fantastic weave print in my very favorite colour. She makes such gorgeous fabric, I'm a big fan.

Of course, all of this cutting into the stash made me feel ok about bringing more fabric in. The lovelies up top arrived today from Matatabi. (Japanese fabric lovers, have you been to this store? Go! Go! It's GOOD). If I can steel myself to take the scissors to it, some of this will become dresses for a flock of dolls I'm working on.

blue and green

I've been feeling a litte flat lately, lacking in motivation and optimism. I'm sure, in part, my lack of motivation is just a case of very boring, middle class, late-winter blahs. I've been dipping in and out of sewing projects, not really loving anything enough to forge ahead, and feeling completely intimidated by some of the beautiful work I've been seeing spring up around blogs and Flickr. And at night, instead of heading into my workroom - which I know will make me feel better - I've been flopping on the couch in an exhausted heap with a cup of tea and more chocolate than necessary.

But I'm sure you didn't come here to hear me whining. There are some lovely things happening. It's Spring for one (as of yesterday) - last week I even weeded the herb/vege garden and put in a couple of early seedlings. I'm slowly painting an old cupboard that we pulled out of our shed last month. It's earmarked for fabric storage, which is always a nice thought. A parcel came from Cia's the other day (including some of the DS flower ribbons in green, above). Audrey has started some transition visits at her school, which she begins full time proper at the beginning of next term. School, I tell you! Gulp.

I've been so inspired by some of the blues and greens that I've been seeing around the place lately - not least of which Blair's beautiful quilt in progress. We made these cupcakes to celebrate my Mum's birthday last week. And I made myself a fabric brooch, heavily inspired by this one over at Angry Chicken.

And to complete my rambling, I just wanted to say thanks so much for the quilt love. You're all very kind.

a community service announcement

In his early retirement, my grandfather was a skilled woodworker. He made beautifully crafted furniture and toys and was meticulous in his attention to detail and quality. I've thought of him this week, and tried to channel the attention-to-detail gene that must be somewhere in my makeup thanks to him, as I UNPICK 6 ROWS OF THE BLASTED TRIANGLE QUILT. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have started sewing something new, especially something requiring a measure of prescision, with a 3 month old in the house. Reading the instructions may have also helped. Ahem.

I'm sewing this in fits and starts - about 15 minutes snatched here and there while Henry sleeps and Audrey is otherwise occupied, or in the evenings when I'm tired (clearly a little too tired - I can't believe it took me 6 rows to realise my stuff up!) So, in case you're about to embark on this quilt, remember to piece the triangles all staggered-like... like this (scroll to Figure 3), so your lovely points don't end up buried in the seam allowance. Damn!














Despite this I'm still quilt obsessed. I've been making quilts in my head - many more will be made this way than I could ever hope to make in reality. This is todays quilt - inspired by a walk around our drippy, autumn neighborhood.

(ps - does this look funny in your browser? Typepad have changed some of their uploading software and it's making everything look odd. Anyone else having these problems?)

like, totally pink

This past weekend, any available opportunity was spent cutting out these 10x10cm squares. Anyone who has read this blog for a while might remember that I've had a couple of aborted attempts to make Audrey a quilt. I never seem to maintain my enthusiasm for quilts. Mostly because I'm never happy with my fabric choices and how they sit together once they're cut and pieced. Also my last idea involved blue prints, which are now a no-go zone ("too boy-ish"... cripey!) in the mind of my 4 year old girl. Anyhow, the other morning at 3 when feeding Henry, it suddenly hit me (as these things sometimes do in the middle of the night) - I need to keep it simple. No prints for me, just solid colours, especially at the moment with a baby in the house and my brain turned to mush. I saw this quilt on flickr last week and haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I love pretty much every thing about this quilt design, and thought I might be able to steal the idea to make all the requisite pink something I'd still like to look at on a daily basis, as well as being acceptable to Audrey. So I made a furtive dash to the local fabric shop (with bad lighting) and came home with too many raspberry/red tones. My first attempt at playing with it with looked a bit angry for a little girl. This is my second attempt with less dark pinks. I think it still needs another paler pink in there. So far it's getting the thumbs up from the pink police, so that's the main thing.

baby talk

Thirty seven weeks, and I'm starting to slow down a little. I'm so behind with responding to email and feel terrible about it, but hope those waiting on me understand that my pace is slowing to a plod. The only sewing I managed on the weekend was hemming the edges of these muslin squares for baby wraps. Not that I care much about gender specific colours, but there's rather a blue theme going on isn't there? I've been staring to wonder what the chances are of the sonographer being wrong... what if it's a girl after all? At least she'd have a name - boy's names are still a hot topic of discussion around here. In any case, baby has turned so isn't breech any longer, and my doctor revised the size down to only 2 weeks ahead (instead of a whopping 8 which was the suggestion at my previous appointment. Phew!) So, after thinking all along that I'd probably be a candidate for repeat c-section (Audrey was born by emergency caesar), I'm staring down the barrel of a possible vbac. What a rollercoaster. And the braxton hicks started yesterday, so the time is nigh to read, read, read, to brush up my knowledge about delivery. This is a strange point of pregnancy to be at, and I find my mind preoccupied with questions that can't be answered, and situations that can't be controlled. Mixed in with the odd rush of excitement and burning desire to sew baby stuff. At least my bag is packed!

making a start

Audrey and I had a very "impormtant" (as she says) conversation yesterday. I told her I needed to know what her favourite colour was so I could make her a special quilt for her new bedroom (we are currently doing a round of pre-baby room switching). After thinking about it for a few moments, her reply was "blue". A few weeks ago, she told me that she wished the whole world was pink (or something to that effect), so I'd been pulling pinks off my fabric shelves, playing around with them and wondering why it just didn't feel right. Last night I started playing with blues and came up with this combination above. It feels so much better - much more her. I'm so excited about making these into a quilt for her! For the patchwork bit, I'm thinking of using this pattern from the Machine Made Patchworks book 1. One of my favourite quilts ever would have to be Rosa's version of this, so beautifully hand quilted. Another reason I'm glad that blue was Audrey's colour of the day is that I have more fabric in those hues with white space in them. I'm no doubt very slow on the pick up, but after looking at this quilt for a while, I realised that it was the white space in so many of the prints that made it work so well. Well, duh, I hear you say. The trick now is to actually get cracking with it. I seem to have so many ideas that burn out before they get a chance to become anything. I'm not alone there am I? But I'm determined not to let this one go. Matt is up a ladder as I type, painting the room this colour (it's much brighter in reality) - perhaps that's just the motivation I need.

'boy' fabric

I guess I should preface this by saying that I never thought I would buy into traditional gender stereotyping (of the aesthetic variety) with any of our children. We don't push the girl/pink thing on Audrey, although she's gravitated toward it happily by herself! That said, I'm really enjoying collecting a few choice 'boy' things in the lead up to the birth of this little guy. I splurged with a couple of purchases from Cia's and Superbuzzy a couple of weeks ago. Love those trains. The Amy Butler dots just jumped into the photo there - such a great shade of green. I'm crazy about these elephants. They are going to become a cushion. Not sure what I'm going to do with these exactly, but the smiling frogs were hard to resist. Maybe a quilt someday? Have you all seen the next Superbuzzy shipment that Kelly previewed the other day? Be still my mouse hand!